NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman encourages people to boo him as majority owner Bill Foley looks on before the Vegas Golden Knights was announced as the name for Foley’s Las Vegas NHL franchise at T-Mobile Arena on November 22, 2016, in Las Vegas. There was one big thing the new Las Vegas franchise didn’t do before having their unveiling gala – make sure their trademark was approved. Mary Clarke of SBNation was the first to report Black Knight Sports & Entertainment (the holding company for the Vegas Golden Knights) had their application for a trademark denied.

In a letter on the NWHL website, league commissioner Dani Rylan hinted at a huge announcement regarding the location of the All-Star Game. The weekend of Feb. 11 and 12 the best of the best in the NWHL will showcase their talents in Pittsburgh (more or less). All 2017 NWHL All-Star events will be held at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, the state-of-the-art practice facility of the Pittsburgh Penguins in Cranberry Township, PA – 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh.

— Up top, Bob McKenzie talks NHL and the Olympics. The Board of Governors is meeting today in Palm Beach, but don’t expect any decision until January. — TSN’s Gary Lawless believes Patrik Laine will end up being better than Auston Matthews. “Laine is the rarest of talents. Scoring goals is the most difficult thing to do in the NHL and he is well ahead of just about every player in the world right now at the age of 18.” Yep, it’s basically Alex Ovechkin versus Sidney Crosby all over again. One’s a winger, the other’s a center. The prevailing hockey wisdom says the center is more valuable, because a center can make more of an impact at both ends of the ice. And, of course, Crosby’s backers can